(Zuerst veröffentlicht am 21.04.2013)
Looking back again: In 1970 I attended several festivals. I tried to collect some information and all in all I succeeded. There may be mistakes ( I still can’t locate Edgar Winter – with or without Johnny).
Anyway: Those were the days:
My memories:
Köln, Progressive Pop Festival, 03/04. April 1970
I went to Cologne with my friend Gerhard (plus his 2CV) and it was the only festival that year where we bought tickets in advance. The Sporthalle in Cologne held a rather large audience and there was another building where we could sleep on the ground floor.
I can remember most of the bands, except for Soft Machine, which is a real pity cause it was the only time I saw them. Biggest disapointment was Tyrannosaurus Rex. I had bought all their recordings so far and was a huge fan. In fact they were nothing less than boring. Steamhammer were a blast, I hadn‘t heard of them before and if I call Correctly they played a second show on the second day. Collosseum were great as were most of the bands. During Deep Purple I fell asleep until awakening with Chicken Shack. I had bought the first Yes album only a few days earlier. Nobody knew they would play and I thought they went down like a well oiled machine, sounding exactly like the album (no jamming like Most of the other bands). Needless to say I didn‘t buy a second Yes album. I think there were some German bands too but I‘m not sure which. The Cologne festival is the one I remember best.
Essen, Zweites Essener Pop and Blues Festival, Grugahalle, 24./25. 04.1970
I went there with some friends from my home village and intended to follow the concept of free concerts. When we arrived it was pretty clear that we couldn‘t break in. So we had to buy tickets which left us without money for food or even return tickets (no car available this time).
The Gruga in Essen is a large indoor – I had been there in 1968 for the Essen Song Days. I can‘t remember where we slept, if we had to leave over night. But I still remember a lot of the great Bands. It‘s A Beautiful Day where famous of their song White Bird, the rest wasn‘t that impressing (still have that feeling with their first album). Black Sabbath felt a bit like a novelty act then, wen didn‘t know that their musical brand would stay for the next fifty years to come. Taj Mahal is good remembered, but the strongest impression was made by the Flock. I‘m not sure if I bought the LP before or after the show (I guess it was the next day). Their jazzy rock and Jerry Goodman‘s violin spellbounded us immediately. Two years later I saw Goodman again – this time with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. That was the beginning and ending of my jazzrock experiences. Burning Red Ivanhoe caught us by surprise and took some years until I found their first album, already on cd. A few years ago I saw an announcement for them at a club in Bornholm. I can recall Ekseption but that‘s about it.
Düsseldorf, Joint Meeting, Eisstadion, 16.05.1970
Same people as Essen along with some Frankfurt heavy potheads we knew. Again we didn‘t want to pay and this time we succeeded. When we broke into the festival we were greeted by the audience with big applause. This fueled us to try our luck the next day again. There were no places where the festival goers could sleep so many of us just lay down in some doorways and had our fun there.
The festival was quite chaotic and there were rumours about bands all days through. Some new bands like Humble Pie, Love Affaire or Marmalede (or both) were not anmounced, John Lennon was rumoured to appear but didn‘t. Taste were realy great- I hadn‘t seen a better guitarist than RG before (at least I thought so). I don‘t think Steamhammer or Move really played. Free stood strong with feet wide apart strumming their low hanging guitars. And they were rather small but with very long hair. Another band I was looking forward to was Family. It was my fourth show zand it was terrible. In my memory amps were smoking and everything fell apart so they had to finish aftr just a few songs. Later I read that there had been a curfew and they had to stop after 20 minutes. I prefer my memory.
Frankfurt, Radstadion, 20.06.1970
There was a guy called Wolfgang from Frankfurt, he had been brought to our flat by my friend Gisela. He told us he had been to Woodstock and a lot of nonsense. Some of his stories were true, he knew some strange people in Frankfurt. So when he told us about that festival we came along -still unsure if this was true. We went to his parent‘s place first and then headed towards the Radstadion. We want to break through again (didn‘t have the money for buying tickets) but that seemed quite difficult. As usual in these cases the people willing to break through gathered outside. Somehow we recocognized at first glance. There were several attempts but it took quite a while until we succeeded. We arrived bevor the stage to see the remaining part of Family‘s show. Roger Chapman was even wilder that usual and we had our fun. Radstadion is a rather large area and we stood a (felt) mile away from the stage to relax and enjoy. I forgot about all the other bands. But when the Byrds arrived I payed more attention and rushed to gehe stage immediately. I had the feeling of hearing a thousand guitars but later learned it was just McGuinn and Clarence White. This show still ranks in my fav 10 shows of all time.
Never again did I see so much good music in such a small period of time. And I‘m thankful for that.
And this is what the bands were paid in those days (1. Essen Festival): Fleetwood Mac 14.000,– DM Nice 6.000,– DM Pink Floyd 5.000– DM More Information is here:Hotels, Line-up etc. An article from SoundsSome names may be wrong. It’s just what I reminded and recollected from the internet. And: I’m not the only one who has been mixing things up. The bands I marked as (??) are mentioned on some sites, but I should remember them. But I can’t remember Deep Purple in Frankfurt, but they were there.Those were the days.
Some information about the Deep Purple show:
Deep Purple Sporthalle, Köln, Germany April 4th, 1970 Progressive Pop Festival (audience) This is directly taken from a silver CD called Progressive Pop Festival . It s one of the oldest Deep Purple audience recordings known to exist. There are just three older ones: Inglewood 1968 (with the Mark I line up, released officially on Sonic Zoom), Zürich March 4th or 5th, 1970 and Berlin March 30th, 1970. There’s one recording claiming to be from Basel March 6th, but this is probably wrong, that should be from June 8th. The Köln show has the benefit of containing a jam number of which no other recording is known to exist: Mumbling Thing Blues . And there’s another unusual thing: After Wring That Neck , Ritchie Blackmore speaks through the microphone to the audience. Just a short sentence, but – as his fans know – it’s very unusual that he does something like this at all.
Line up is Deep Purple Mark II consisting of:
Ritchie Blackmore – guitar
Ian Gillan – vocals
Roger Glover – bass guitar
Jon Lord – organ
Ian Paice – drums
CD 1 01 – Speed King 02 – Mumbling Thing Blues 03 – Wring That Neck 04 – Paint It Black
CD 2 01 – Mandrake Root 02 – Black Night 03 – Lucille